Hostage talks start after Pakistani Taliban militants seize interrogators
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Police guarding a road they blocked after Taliban militants seized a police station in Bannu, Pakistan, on Dec 19.
PHOTO: AFP
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BANNU, Pakistan - Pakistani authorities on Monday opened talks to try and resolve a stand-off with Islamist militants who were holding several security personnel hostage after seizing control of a counter-terrorism facility in the country’s northwest a day earlier.
Security forces have surrounded the interrogation centre near the town of Bannu, where around 20 fighters from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - an umbrella group of Islamist and sectarian groups - are holed up.
According to a provincial government spokesman, the militants were demanding safe passage to Afghanistan.
“We are in negotiations with the central leaders of the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan,” Mr Mohammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, told Reuters.
He said relatives of the militants had also been involved in initiating talks with the militants inside the facility.
At least one counter-terrorism official was killed by the militants, who according to the authorities had snatched weapons off their guards while under interrogation. Several significant TTP members were present at the centre, Mr Saif said.
He did not say how many security personnel were being held hostage. But, an intelligence officer told Reuters that there were six hostages - four from the military and two from the counter-terrorism agency.
The TTP, which has stepped up attacks since it announced ending a ceasefire with the government last month, has long used violence in a bid to take over the country and enforce their own harsh brand of Islam.
Bannu district sits just outside North Waziristan, a lawless tribal region bordering Afghanistan that has long been a safe haven for militants.
A video posted to social media, which the government official confirmed to be from the scene, showed a group of armed men with long beards, with one threatening to kill all the hostages.
He said they had at least eight hostages, including police and military staff.
In 2012 and 2013, dozens of heavily armed Taliban fighters freed more than 600 prisoners, including hardcore militants, during two sophisticated overnight attacks on a jail in Bannu town. REUTERS, AFP
